NBA commissioner lays out what a post-Coronavirus NBA will look likeBack to video

So it was a no-holds-barred Silver who joined the Player’s Association conference call this past week and spelled out the future, as tough as it might be to hear for all those who will be affected.

The details of the call were revealed by a number of media outlets with Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN providing the bulk of them and the earliest revelations.

It starts with a post-pandemic NBA playing games in front of empty arenas, both as they (hopefully) finish off 2019-20 but also likely into 2020-21.

Silver warned players to plan for some very tough times ahead as the league, which pulls in 40% of its revenue from gate receipts and would lose all of that.

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He didn’t spell out how it would affect salary caps or how future basketball-related income would be affected, but left the impression that the current agreement between the players and the league would not be sufficient to deal with the expected losses.

“The CBA was not built for extended pandemics,” Silver reportedly said on the call.

But the call wasn’t all doom and gloom.

Silver was asked about potential drop dead dates for the resumption of the current season and suggested to the PA that the league was prepared to go well into June if need be before making any definitive calls on the resumption of the 2019-20 season.

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He said ownership within the NBA remains uniformly interested in seeing a playoff conclusion to the current year.

As for the various scenarios about how the league would re-open, Silver suggested it’s probably the safest scenario to limit host sites to just one or two in order to ensure safety of the players as much as possible. He said Orlando and Las Vegas at this point would be the two most likely such sites to host.

But the issue of all issues remains testing if the NBA, or any other league, is going to get back to playing.

Playing in a bubble and staying isolated from the general public is one thing, but until they can test and re-test and ensure they are not bringing any individuals carrying the COVID-19 virus into their midst, it’s a losing battle.

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Now the availability of the tests — particularly in the U.S. where testing has been so poorly handled — is very much an issue right now, but Silver suggested that in a couple of months time, when the league would realistically be looking at resuming, that would not be a problem.

The optics of using tests for a professional sports league to resume when front-line health care workers who were actually putting themselves in harm’s way weren’t able to get them is nothing the NBA or any pro league wants to deal with.

Silver, according to reports, was confident that would not be the case when the NBA was ready to resume.

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As many have been expecting Silver once again reiterated his own belief that regardless of if or when the current season concludes, it’s a very real possibility that the 2020-21 season won’t begin until December.

TALKING POINTS

Following are a few more points Silver made in the hour-long conference call with the Player’s Association and some other revelations from the call:

— A one or two-site base from which the NBA would operate would still include some restrictions on the players, but Silver was quoted as saying “the goal isn’t to have you go to a market for two months to sit in hotel room.”

— Silver also discussed a training camp that would last a minimum of three weeks, although even that seems short.

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— The notion of limiting games to just one or two cities would also allow for a more condensed schedule and therefore a chance to possibly finish the current regular season and still get in a full round of playoffs.

— A positive test, according to Silver, when full workouts and potentially games do return would not shutter the entire operation. Silver said the individual would be removed from the playing or practice environment and those around him would undergo more testing.

— Silver was asked to remind teams that the opening of some facilities allows for voluntary workouts by players. There was a suggestion that some teams were forgetting these workouts were, in fact, voluntary.

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